‘Red Lights’ Director of ‘Buried’ at Sundance 2012

Marking yet another interesting entry in the career of Cillian Murphy, an ambitious performer always tackling new genres and new characters, is Red Lights from director Rodrigo Cortes (Buried).

This time around, it’s a thriller and the subject is the paranormal. Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Dr. Thomas Buckley (Cillian Murphy) travel the country, investigating reported sights of the supernatural, disproving each and every one with relative ease.

Amidst their cynicism, world-renowned psychic Simon Silver (Robert de Niro) returns from a long controversial absence, making believers out of any and all who witness his abilities. So begins Tom’s slow descent into madness, determined to prove Silver is a fraud. But, can it be that Simon Silver is not a fraud?

Cortes proved a talented filmmaker in tight spaces with Buried, and here he’s eager to expand in every way. There are more than a couple of suspenseful sequences in beautifully-realized spaces, one hotel set piece in particular. The director owes a lot to his production designer, Antón Laguna. The same can be said for cinematographer Xavi Giménez, who succeeds in pulpy, but not garish, moody lighting.

Narratively, the film posits itself much like a magic trick (you’ll think of The Prestige more than once). Weaver and Murphy’s doctors convince their classroom (full of students who include Sundance faves Elizabeth Olsen and Craig Roberts), as well as the audience, that paranormal activity is nothing more than well-performed magic, and what follows is increasingly inexplicable events that make you, the viewer, question that which the film itself has told you is unreal.

De Niro, though barely in the film, is a palpable presence, enjoying the role of prophetic psychic much in the same way he enjoyed playing the devil in Angel Heart or a gay pirate, more recently, in Stardust. And though he’s over-doing it, he knows when to harness his energy, most notably in one particular, somewhat meditative scene with Tom towards the end of film.

Olsen and Roberts are, unfortunately, so utterly wasted here you’d almost wish Cortes had cast other, less-engaging actors to play parts so minor. You can feel Cortes, who also edited the picture, trying to find as much extra footage of the two young starlets as he can in order to give their screen time more meaning.

Meanwhile, Weaver continues to prove she’s one of the most reliables actresses around, offering both humor and gravitas to a topic that wields an interesting amount of both emotions, many times all in one. This, perhaps, is the film’s greatest accomplishment. It knows both how silly psychic demonstrations are and how serious many people take them. There are as many laughs as there are scares on screen, breaking tension just as it begins to build it up again.

And thought it all feels like something that was perhaps a bit more intellectual and psychological on the page, the end result is nothing if not engaging. It’s nice to see Murphy in the shoes of a leading man, proving he can be whatever we need him to be.

via thefilmstage.

—

red lights,robert de niro

Presentato al Sundance Red Lights, dal regista di Buried

Sundance: Red Lights, il nuovo Ghostbusters

Il regista di “Buried” ha presentato il suo nuovo film, un thriller paranormale con Robert De Niro

Dopo aver esordito proprio al Sundance con il suo thriller “Buried – Sepolto”, il film che vedeva Ryan Reynolds sepolto vivo in una bara mentre tentava di salvarsi la pelle, il regista spagnolo Rodrigo Cortés ha scelto nuovamente il festival di Park City per presentare il suo nuovo lavoro, “Red Lights”. Un thriller sovrannaturale che è stato già definito “il ‘Ghostbusters‘ del ventunesimo secolo”.

Con la classica commedia horror di Ivan Reitman, “Red Lights” condivide la premessa e uno dei protagonisti. Sigourney Weaver interpreta infatti Margaret Matheson, una psicologa a capo di una squadra che si occupa di studiare e smentire i fenomeni paranormali. Ma davanti a loro, la Matheson e il suo assistente Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) potrebbero avere il caso più difficile della carriera, quello di Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), un famoso sensitivo tornato in attività dopo trent’anni di silenzio. La pellicola riserva anche ruoli minori alla pupilla del Sundance, Elizabeth Olsen, e a Toby Jones.

Le prime reazioni sul film sono divise. Slashfilm ne parla bene, citando alcuni spaventi ben realizzati e un certo gusto nel giocare con le aspettative del pubblico, ma poi si chiede: “Può un finale forse orribile rovinare un film per il resto riuscito? Il finale sfoggia un colpo di scena poco chiaro, che potrebbe non legarsi logicamente al film”. “Divertente e ricco di suspense, ‘Red Lights‘ intrattiene, ma solo se riuscirete a superare il fatto che sia totalmente esagerato e ridicolo – scrive Vulture – I tre protagonisti divorano i loro succosi ruoli e c’è uno scontro grandioso, estremamente violento e completamente gratuito ambientato in un bagno, con tanto sangue e porcellana rotta. E no, gli ultimi sei minuti non hanno senso e non vale la pena cercare di capirne il significato”. “’Red Lights‘ è un affascinante fallimento e forse diventerà un cult, ma è comunque un fallimento”, scrive HitFix, mentre The Film Stage ribatte: “Anche se sulla carta il film era forse più intellettuale e psicologico, il risultato finale è intrigante”.

Non resta che sperare in una distribuzione, per capire di persona chi abbia ragione tra le due parti. Purtroppo, molti acquirenti sono fuggiti dalla sala prima della fine della proiezione, e questo non può essere un buon segno per Cortés: “Buried” è stato venduto per tre milioni di dollari, ma il film poi andò male nelle sale. Che ci sia ancora qualcuno disposto a dargli credito?

—

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival slogan is “Look Again,” a piece of advice that has caused amusement and confusion for members of the press whose headshots are glued onto our badges adjacent only to the word “Again,” as if Robert Redford himself were looking at each of us and saying, “Seriously? That guy? Again?”
Cheap juxtapositional humor aside, I gave the “Look Again” banner extra thought after it appeared on the screen following Friday (January 20) night’s world premiere of Rodrigo Cortes’ “Red Lights.”
The follow-up to Cortes’ “Buried,” a conceptually tricky thriller which went from hot Sundance title to theatrical non-event in record time two years ago, “Red Lights” is a generally infuriating and occasionally intriguing muddle of a movie that spins wildly out of control in its final half-hour, climaxing in a two-minute montage of voiceover and exposition that either does or doesn’t turn the rest of the movie upside-down in maddening fashion.
The movie ended. The credits rolled. I was sitting in the back of the Eccles Theatre scratching my head and the words “Look Again” came up on the screen.
Some viewers are definitely going to find “Red Lights” worthy of a second viewing, particularly in the aftermath of that peculiar ending. As for me? Asked to look again, I’m afraid I’m going to take a pass. Like I said, “Red Lights” is occasionally intriguing, but I don’t think the things that intrigued me had anything to do with the main text or impact of the movie. That doesn’t make them less interesting and I’m pretty sure that “Red Lights” is a fascinating failure — and possibly an oddball cult film in-the-making — but a failure none-the-less.
Full review after the break…
“Red Lights” stars Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Margaret Matheson, an ultra-rational college professor who travels around the country with physicist sidekick Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) debunking paranormal phenomena. Armed with logic and science, Matheson and Buckley take the miraculous — whether ghosts or extra-sensory powers — and render it comprehensible.
[If I hadn’t discussed last night’s review of “The Queen of Versailles” in terms of the “Real Housewives” phenomenon, I’d probably get all “Ghosthunters” on “Red Lights,” but I can’t compare every Sundance movie to a reality TV show if I want to retain credibility.]
Complication comes in the form of Matheson’s longtime adversary Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), a legendary blind psychic who emerges from a 30 year absence armed with seemingly every available power that writer-director Cortes could think of: Silver’s a mentalist and a healer and he bends spoons and develops photographs with his brain.
If you’ve seen movies or TV shows before, it won’t surprise you to know that these two professional skeptics are about to experience something that’s going to put their view of the world to the ultimate test.
The movie’s title refers to the tell-tale signs of fraud that Matheson and Buckley have been trained to look for and “Red Lights” is very much about ways of perception, whether the perception of its two main characters or the perception of the audience. When you make a film about sleight of hand and hoaxes, you’re invariably delivering some commentary on the cinematic process, delving into ideas of spectacle, misdirection and distraction. In this respect, I found myself comparing the approach of “Red Lights” to Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige.” The Sundance “Look Again” motto couldn’t be more appropriate for the construction of the movie, assuming you’re willing to weed through some cumbersome storytelling.
For its first 90 minutes, Cortes’ script keeps repeating its core binaries in one expositional scene after another. Magic versus Science! Faith versus Reason! Certainty versus Doubt! Characters are either lecturing or being lectured to, with small-talk at a minimum. Because it’s almost all talk, Cortes has to resort to one cheap jump-scare after another, just to keep the audience engaged. Slamming door! Crashing bird! Tall black man! None of it’s even slightly scary, but I’ll bet you could cut together a trailer for “Red Lights” that could fool a viewer or two.
Anybody who has seen “Buried” knows that Cortes is extremely gifted when it comes to creating the sensation of movement in scenes that would otherwise be potentially claustrophobic. In one scene, Cortes stages a panel TV discussion in which Weaver’s character has to defend her rationalist point of view against three members of Simon Silver’s camp and the camera rushes dazzlingly from character to character, making a mockery of the contained nature of the televisual space on your typical “Meet the Press” knockoff.
This is one of those strange things about “Red Lights” that worked for me: Cortes has created an alternate reality in which local newscasts and papers are obsessed by the philosophical conflict between a populist psychic and an ivory tower academic. It’s not an entirely fictional universe, because Criss Angel is referenced, but Simon Silver has a profile that’s closer to that of wildly popular televangelist, rather than a magician and Matheson’s profile goes well beyond the pop culture eggheads who play the buzzkills on cable specials about UFOs. Then again, Matheson teaches psychology at a school where here specialty is under siege from the Scientific Paranormal Research Center, a nearly-legitimate department fronted by Toby Jones’ Paul Shackleton.
And where exactly is this university? Well, I don’t quite know. That is, in fact, my favorite part of “Red Lights.” The movie was shot in Barcelona, but also in Toronto, while it’s set in neither city. So just as the culture is foreign to our actual culture, the urban space isn’t connected to any one city. I hate to compare “Red Lights” to another Christopher Nolan joint, but it’s like how Gotham City has become a franken-city, cobbled together from several locations, but tied exclusively to none. This frees Cortes, cinematographer Xavi Gimenez and production designer Anton Laguna from the bounds of any one geography. From Matheson and Buckley’s science lair to the theater environments dominated by Silver, “Red Lights” covers a recognizable-yet-alien terrain.
The actors struggle not to get upstaged by Cortes’ world-building. Weaver is sturdy, but her character is all too familiar and despite a couple sympathy-driving details, she never quite escapes from her voice-of-reason box. The movie may begin as Matheson’s story, but the characters steered by passion quickly steal the show. Murphy starts off pitched as a match to Weaver, but before long he’s pounding tables, shouting and grabbing his head in growing outrage. Also turning up the volume steadily is De Niro, whose initial underplaying comes across as curious. After all, who would have guessed that De Niro + Blindness would equal Muted? Fortunately, the last act of the movie is one Simon Silver monologue after another, as the character’s attempt to assert his identity takes on a Hamlet-y aspect, leading to a joyfully hammy combination of purple prose and an actor unlikely to be limited by a young filmmaker like Cortes.
By the end of “Red Lights,” De Niro is as broad as I’ve ever seen him go, which is impressive when you remember we’re talking about the star of “Cape Fear” and “Rocky & Bullwinkle” here. There’s an interpretation of “Red Lights” that combines De Niro’s largesse with Murphy’s theatricality and Cortes’ corny jump-scares and assumes that there’s some winking and nudging going on, but everything that comes before is so earnest that it’s hard to accept that as the director’s intent.
[“Red Lights” also co-stars last year’s Sundance darling Elizabeth Olsen, who mostly gets to be cute and character-free as one of Matheson and Buckley’s students who ends up assisting with their investigations and… nothing else. Nobody bothered to write a part for Olsen, but she must have gotten a week or two in Barcelona, which works out a superior compensation for a lack of nuance.]
With a running time of nearly two hours, endless repetition of the same points and that darned ending I can’t discuss, “Red Lights” could almost get away with being a work-in-progress. It doesn’t have distribution yet and the right acquiring company would almost have to mandate some trims and adjustments. Cortes is very smart and thoughtful in person and I can imagine him returning to this cut in a few months and realizing that the movie he really wanted to make is buried — at 3:20 a.m. on two hours sleep, I neither intend puns, nor correct them once they’re already there — deep inside.
So call me when “Red Lights” is a lean-and-mean 95 minutes and when the ending requires less spelling out for it to make sense.
Then, I’ll look again. (via)

—

Red Lights
Plot: Director Rodrigo Cortes follows up Buried — where he buried Ryan Reynolds alive and made a splash at Sundance a few years back — with this story of scientists Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Dr. Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy), who travel around debunking the work of psychics, mediums, and all other paranormal phenomena. Things get weird and complicated when Matheson’s long-time rival, Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), comes out of a 30-year retirement to demonstrate his talents at healing, mind control, and projecting his thoughts onto film … but is he for real?
Reaction: Fun, suspenseful schlock, Red Lights (the name refers to the telltale signs of fraud that Matheson and Buckley are trained to spot) is quite enjoyable — that is, if you can get past the fact that it’s also completely over-the-top and ridiculous. All three leads rip into their meaty parts, and there’s a great, extremely violent, completely gratuitous fight in a bathroom complete with lots of blood and broken porcelain. And, no, the final six minutes do not make any sense, and it’s not worth trying to figure out what they mean. (via Vulture)

—

Rodrigo Cortés made a name for himself with a film that premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival: Buried, based on Chris Sparling’s black list script about a man buried alive who has to figure a way out of his coffin before his air supply is used up. The film starred Ryan Reynolds, and was critically praised for it’s direction, a tough task considering the 95-minute film takes place completely inside a casket.

Cortés returns to Sundance two years later with the $15 million thriller Red Lights, which he also wrote. The story follows Psychologist Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and her assistant Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) as they study and disprove paranormal activity, parascience and psychics. But can they take down world-renowned psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro), who has come out of retirement after three decades?

This is a 21st century Ghostbusters. What if Venkman, Stantz and Spengler never got fired from their parapsychology professor jobs? What if they took their research seriously and mounted a serious fight against the world of paranormal scams (a la skeptics James Randi and Penn Jillette), busting “ghosts” through scientific research. Or you might even be ale to think of it as a Ghostbusters spin-off — what if Dana Barrett (Weaver’s character in GB) left the company of the Ghostbusters and became a skeptic?

Red Lights has great fun building your expectations with sound science and skeptic-based theories, and later playing with these ideas, making you question if extrasensory perception might be possible (if only in this movie). The film also sets up a few great scares and jumps, which had the Eccles theatre screaming.

In addition to the primary cast, 2011 Sundance “it girl” Elizabeth Olsen plays a role, and Toby Jones also has a supporting part in the film. Both actors, however, are almost completely unnecessary to the film’s plot.

Can a possibly horrible ending ruin a otherwise entertaining film? That is the question with Red Lights. The last third of the film becomes something much different than what the first two acts lead one to expect. The end features a twist that is confusing and might not fit logically. I’m sure the film might draw comparisons to Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige or Alex Proyas’ Knowing. Unfortunately, Red Lights isn’t as well plotted and intricate as Prestige and lacks the explainable, interesting, yet ridiculous twist of Knowing. (And no, Red Lights has nothing to do with god or aliens).

I’m not convinced that everyone will hate the ending. I’m not even sure I hated the ending. 24 hours later, I’m still not sure what to think about it. But think about it I have. During the question and answer session which followed the screening, one audience member had the balls to ask Cortés to explain what exactly happened during the film’s conclusion. Rodrigo responded that he would rather us interoperate the film for ourselves and come up with our own answers. His hope was that the film would create discussion.

I spent over an hour discussing the ending with other bloggers who saw the film. We were able to come to some conclusions, but various points have no explained (or sometimes logical) answer.

Are the mysteries in this film to discuss? Or are they just plot holes that were left open for discussion?

via ‘Red Lights’ – The Director of ‘Buried’ Created His Version of ‘Ghostbusters’ [Sundance 2012] | /Film.

Comments, Comments Welcome

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.